What Motivates Undergraduate Students to Take Up a Distance English Course?

Abstract

What is motivation? What motivates students to register in a distance English course? What is the role of motivation in language teaching and learning? How do beliefs, expectations and motivation interact with each other in the distance study of English? These questions guide the reflections to be promoted in this article. Motivation is a unique construct to stimulate prolific foreign language learning. With regard to distance learning, the study of motivation is mandatory to assist us in the search of the factors that determine the adhesion and retention of students in such courses and the success in the achievement of results. We follow the theoretical definitions and theories of motivation from Applied Linguistics (PINTRICH; SCHUNK, 1996; WILLIAMS; BURDEN, 1997; GARDNER et al., 2004; DÖRNYEI, 2005; DÖRNYEI; USHIODA, 2011) and its interconnection with other constructs that can influence the language teaching and learning process, namely, beliefs and expectations. In this article, we aim to identify what the motivations, expectations and beliefs of undergraduate students are to join IngRede, an ESP distance course, as well as to analyze how these aspects interact in a virtual learning environment and how their influences can be inferred from that context.

Keywords

• Motivation
• Beliefs
• Distance learning